Project Logic Ga

Coalitions win elections.  After primary battles, the party that gets itself together fastest will likely be victorious.  I am still upset that Ralph Nader pulled enough voters from Al Gore to help George Bush win in 2000.  Like Hillary Clinton, Gore won the popular vote but you must have strategy where it matters.

Strategy is a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty.   Remember, at this point in 2016, I was telling everyone who would listen that Donald Trump could win the election by playing opossum (playing dead) as we say in the country.  We let our guard down.

I am getting over my feelings about Bernie Sanders Progressives who didn’t vote for Hillary (…if you had it to do over, grasshopper….).  Yes,  those voters could have been the margin of victory in pivotal states.  I want to take a brief look at coalitions on the Republican and Democrat sides relative to 2012 and 2020.

First of all, the Republican base will obviously vote for whomever their party nominates in any election.  They have been so brainwashed about Democrats until they trust the Russians more than us.  To get to 50%, they motivate some rural people with faith and gun issues.  But, most of the Black folks at my church are veterans who own peacekeeping steel also.  Go figure?

So, will working class Whites stay with the Trump division of the GOP?  Will the Dem Team develop and market a package to entice those voters back?  You can’t win a statewide election in the South without a certain percentage of those voters.  It starts with quality schools, jobs and affordable healthcare.  The awkwardness of the Trump administration from day one has tarnished the Republican brand.  They have some decisions to make.

On the Democrat side in the South, we must understand that Blacks for now are the backbone of the party.  To some, the party feels like a plantation with Whites running everything while Blacks do the heavy lifting.  The strategy for me involves a coalition of everyone….city progressives, moderate rural Blacks and some working class Whites who are about to learn that far Right budget cuts know no color.

Know this: there is a difference between a political party and a movement.  Black Lives Matter, The Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street, Trump’s Make America Great Again and Sander’s Progressives are movements and not subject to political parties.

We need to know now if movements are going to “act right” if parties give them a national stage. Really, they shouldn’t as activist but just say so from jump street.

We are looking at candidates for governor in Georgia for 2018 and even president in 2020.  My friends don’t agree but I believe in asking candidates how they feel about candidates and officeholders on other levels of government.  You don’t get my vote if you thought Obama was a bad guy and Trump is wonderful….no way.  Actually, the 2018 election will be a referendum on Trump… local, state and federal.

The margin of victory for Democrats in 2018 is narrowed if candidates put a fire in the belly of infrequent voters.